Activist supports immigrant taking refuge inside Chicago church

MEXICO CITY — A deported Mexican migrant who holed up in a Chicago church to fight for immigrants' rights rallied support Tuesday for another woman now seeking refuge in the same building.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Elvira Arellano said 28-year-old Flor Crisostomo's situation showed the need for U.S. immigration reform.

"She has three kids who depend on her and what she sends from the U.S.," Arellano said.

Crisostomo took refuge in the Adalberto United Methodist Church after the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered her to leave the U.S. by Monday. The single mother paid a smuggler to sneak her into the country in 2000 and has sent money to her children in her hometown of Iguala in southern Guerrero state.

Arellano, who sought sanctuary for a year, was deported to Mexico in August when she left the church to visit L.A. She lives in a small town in western Mexico with her son, a U.S. citizen, and writes columns for U.S. newspapers.

Her son is going to school and trying to adapt to life in Mexico, but "he really wants to return to the U.S.," she said.

She said she hoped the immigrant community in the U.S. would rally around Crisostomo's case as they did hers.

"Undocumented immigrants are living there in the darkness, fearing deportation and being separated from their families," she said.

Arellano and Crisostomo became friends and fellow activists after Crisostomo was arrested during a 2006 raid on IFCO Systems in Chicago.